TLDR Index
TLDR

TLDR 2026-01-08

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01BIG TECH & STARTUPS

OPENAI LAUNCHES CHATGPT HEALTH TO CONNECT USER MEDICAL RECORDS, WELLNESS APPS

ChatGPT Health allows users to securely connect their medical records and wellness apps to the platform. The feature is supposed to help users navigate everyday questions rather than intended for diagnosis or treatment. The data will make ChatGPT's responses more relevant by grounding them in user data. ChatGPT Health will initially be made available to a small group of test users. OpenAI will expand access in the coming weeks.

cnbc.com4 min read

THE WAYMO OJAI WILL SOON OFFER AUTONOMOUS RIDES AROUND THE US

Waymo is preparing to update its lineup with a new van built by Chinese automaker Zeekr and a modified Hyundai Ioniq 5s. The vehicles will be added to Waymo's growing operations this year, but the company has yet to specify which cities will see them. The Zeekr vehicle will be called the Waymo Ojai in the US. Zeekr will construct the body of the van in China before shipping it to the US, where Waymo will fit its software suite and array of sensors. The vehicle will not be affected by US regulations aimed at preventing Chinese cars from being sold to customers in the US.

caranddriver.com3 min read

02SCIENCE & FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY

INSIDE THE SUB-ZERO LAIR OF THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL COMPUTER

Quantum computing holds the key to winning the rest of the 21st Century. Google's quantum AI lab in Santa Barbara contains Willow, Google's latest quantum chip. Willow has settled the discussion about whether quantum computers can do tasks that classical computers can't, and it has also solved a benchmark problem in minutes that would have taken the best computer in the world 10 septillion years. This article gives readers a tour through the Santa Barbara lab and discusses the state of quantum computing and the potential impacts it may have in the future.

bbc.com10 min read

THE GOLDEN AGE OF VACCINE DEVELOPMENT

Vaccine technology has changed inconceivably in the 230 years since the accidental discovery of the first vaccine. Many diseases that plagued humanity are now mostly forgotten. It has become far easier and faster to develop new vaccines, and they can be engineered to be safer and more precise than ever before. With progress speeding up in recent years, the golden age of vaccine development seems imminent.

worksinprogress.co32 min read

03PROGRAMMING, DESIGN & DATA SCIENCE

THE MODERN AI PM IN THE AGE OF AGENTS

The job of the PM used to be to translate what customers want into specs that would be handed to engineers. That translation layer is compressing. PMs are now writing specs for AI agents to implement. The bottleneck has shifted upstream as the implementation barrier has dropped. The scarce resource is now knowing what's actually worth building.

links.tldrnewsletter.com10 min read

AI'S IMPACT ON TAILWIND

75% of Tailwind's engineering team lost their jobs due to the impact AI has had on the business. Traffic to Tailwind's docs is down about 40% from early 2023. The docs are the only way for people to discover Tailwind's commercial products, so this is resulting in less income for the project. While Tailwind is growing faster than ever and is bigger than it has ever been, its revenue is down close to 80%.

simonwillison.net2 min read

04MISCELLANEOUS

CONSUMER AI PREDICTIONS

Phones are too powerful - screenless AI devices will flop, as will 'always listening' devices. Mini-apps will unlock UGC personal software. There will be two big general-purpose AI chatbots by 2030. Performance marketing for apps is dead. The fastest consumer product to reach $1 billion ARR will be an AI webcam girl. Whoever figures out how to unlock use cases for AI beyond search and chat will be the next big consumer platform.

links.tldrnewsletter.com5 min read

MICROSOFT'S WOULD-HAVE-BEEN $30B "HACKQUISITION" OF OPENAI

Microsoft's 'hackquisition' of Inflection in 2024 was groundbreaking and led basically all of its rivals to copy the same general structure. Microsoft first conceived the plan when Sam Altman was ousted as CEO in November 2023. It had planned to hire the entire company if OpenAI refused to reinstate Altman. Altman was quickly reinstated, but the situation clearly planted the seed that would grow into the 'hackquisition' model.

spyglass.org6 min read